Saturday, April 12, 2008

Mindless Debates

It may be due to the fact that I spend all day communicating with children. Their logic and reasoning has sucked me in and sadly I have given into debating them on very stupid topics. Why do I do this? It usually isn't until I have delivered several sound supportive facts for my cause and their only response is "uh-uh" and they think that is argument enough to win me over, that I then realize I have been sucked in again. Some of our recent examples:

Mitch, age 5, has a pair of gray cords. They are way ugly, BTW, but we ain't buying new pants at this point in the season. However, every time we are laying out his "Molly" (non-family members will not know that Molly is the term used when we lay tomorrow's clothes out on the floor) he will refer to them as brown. I then gently correct him and say they are gray. To which he not-so-gently corrects me with saying they are brown. And we're off! No win here! Doesn't matter what I compare them to, he insists they are brown. We can debate this until the cows come home and he will not budge. And in case you are wondering, he is very bright in every other aspect of living. Well, as bright as a boy his age can be considering his level of spazziness (did you know spazzy isn't in spell check? Do the Spellchecks not have any boys of their own?)

My other current fave is that Ethan has a boy in his preschool named Sterling. Whenever we refer to Sterling as a 'he', Isaac and Mitch both correct me and say that Sterling is a girl's name and therefore he must be a 'she'. They have never met Sterling and don't know that he is very much a he in the sense of size and personality. Let me add that they have not met any Sterling females so their logic is based on just thinking it sounds like a girl name. This debate is particularly frustrating because Ethan knows Sterling and knows he's a boy and takes it personally that his brothers are calling his friend a girl. Which, of course, makes Ike and Mitch enjoy the argument all the more.

Along those same lines we also had a hard time watching the movie Snow Buddies since the main character is named Adam and is a boy despite his long hair and pre-pubescent high voice. Again, we do not know any girl named Adam, but because of those two latter characteristics my boys kept on telling me he was a she and this argument may have ruined the movie for me (Way cheesy kid movie, but it made me want to go buy lots of puppies).

Then there is Ethan who insists that Monster Trucks are bigger than mountains. I could go on. And on. And on. The bottom line is I enjoy jumping in the fray to defend truth and liberty as far as truth and liberty can be defended in regards to colors and gender names. Eventually I always come to my senses after about 20 or so "uh-uh"s and realize that truth has no chance when you are dealing with irrational midgets. When does logic kick in anyway? Because Isaac will be 8 soon, and I'm ready for a good debate already.

5 comments:

hOLLIANN said...

I have a solution...Brainwashing. I have no irrational midgets. They know that I am all knowing and therefore worship the ground my all to often heard opinion walks on.

cold cocoa said...

Don't boys have different perceptions of color? We see that with yellow bus instead of orange.
You should try bringing up issues of real debate at the dinner table like Mom did. You can train them to channel their spazziness into intelligent debate.

LC said...

BD always calls anything that is a deep shade of red "purple." For example he will wear his "purple" jacket to Bball practice. Of course it isn't "purple." They don't make purple jackets for men. It is RED or to be more exact, Maroon.

TisforTonya said...

call it "taupe" and see where you get - or should I just tell you... nowhere, I don't know why they bother making so many colors of crayons is the boys' boxes, they get by fine with 8... now if my girls don't have all 96 there's a problem because they're in search of just the right shade of puce to complement the periwinkle.

DKAZ said...

Two words-color blind.